So I was looking on supertopo's forum the other day and saw a question about abseiling past the anchor point whilst carrying your pig and having no partner to help you out, what do you do? im sure loads of people will say just don't do it and be all smart about it!! But I thought id show you what id do and see what people thought?

Lets assume your soloing and have decided to retreat. Your abseiling down 2 ropes tied together through a sling, I know! I know! you shouldn't! but we are. Now one chap said to climb the rope like a tree surgeon, not gona go into this, but that is way wrong, you'll cut the the sling/rope in no time. Another chap said to hang your pig where your at, then climb the rope, then come back down for it, seems ok???. Im not able to upload my photo for some reason!!!

ohhh well

1- third hand stops you. 2- place 2 ascenders on the ropes above with a karabiner connecting them together 3- place a petzl traxion and a gri gri on the pig/you 4-have the ropes come through the ascenders and down to the traxion and gri gri. 5- place a pully and spare karabiner on the karabiner that is at the bottom of the ascenders. 6- send the rope coming from the gri gri up through the pully and back to you 7- send the rope from the traxion up through the spare karabiner and back to you

You now have a far end haul system on two ropes. climb back to the anchor point and start abseiling again.

So I was looking on supertopo's forum the other day and saw a question about abseiling past the anchor point whilst carrying your pig and having no partner to help you out, what do you do? im sure loads of people will say just don't do it and be all smart about it!! But I thought id show you what id do and see what people thought?

Lets assume your soloing and have decided to retreat. Your abseiling down 2 ropes tied together through a sling, I know! I know! you shouldn't! but we are. Now one chap said to climb the rope like a tree surgeon, not gona go into this, but that is way wrong, you'll cut the the sling/rope in no time. Another chap said to hang your pig where your at, then climb the rope, then come back down for it, seems ok???. Im not able to upload my photo for some reason!!!

ohhh well

1- third hand stops you. 2- place 2 ascenders on the ropes above with a karabiner connecting them together 3- place a petzl traxion and a gri gri on the pig/you 4-have the ropes come through the ascenders and down to the traxion and gri gri. 5- place a pully and spare karabiner on the karabiner that is at the bottom of the ascenders. 6- send the rope coming from the gri gri up through the pully and back to you 7- send the rope from the traxion up through the spare karabiner and back to you

You now have a far end haul system on two ropes. climb back to the anchor point and start abseiling again.

The above in bold seems doable. After hanging the pig you could use 2 prusic loops, each around both lines, to ascend back up. Ropes couldn't saw back and forth that way.

Edit: I'll ask anyway, why not a biner instead of a sling to retreat from?

well I suppose someone had to ask. leaving a biner, sure theres no prob there, would be the safest thing to do, but we English men are as tight as a ducks butt when it comes to leaving gear ha ha ha ha

well I suppose someone had to ask. leaving a biner, sure theres no prob there, would be the safest thing to do, but we English men are as tight as a ducks butt when it comes to leaving gear ha ha ha ha

So tight you'd rather die? Ok maybe not die...but maybe if you futz around wrong with your setup.

Climbing is an INCREDIBLY cheap sport to participate in. Leaving a 5 dollar biner is nothing.

I would actually leave a biner, I agree for 5 dollars its well worth leaving one my comment about being tight wasn't to be taken too seriously. but people have and will, still use a sling!. Its very easy to say what should be done, but in the event somebody does do something like use a sling, looking at ways to prevent the worst case scenario should not be ignored.

If you look at the original post you will see that my set up is a far end haul system on a double rope. ive done this with a pig weighing loads and its easy!!!! plus we're not talking of climbing a 60m rope, although I could

thanks for the reply. Both options are good - this is the kind of feedback I was after. trying not to sound cocky, but I found this to be really easy, even if it does sound complicated. its just another option for people to consider, I like to have more than 1 way of doing things.

I would actually leave a biner, I agree for 5 dollars its well worth leaving one my comment about being tight wasn't to be taken too seriously. but people have and will, still use a sling!. Its very easy to say what should be done, but in the event somebody does do something like use a sling, looking at ways to prevent the worst case scenario should not be ignored.

Yeah I don't really accept that, sorry man. Contingency plans are awesome - for things you can't control/expect will happen. There doesn't need to be a contingency plan for this situation. If you're at a rap station and all there is is a horn with a sling around it A) add another sling to the situation and cut away the old crap (sun and heat damages the webbing and could make it fail) B) attach a locking carabiner to the setup to rappel through.

See, there's no need for a contingency plan of the nature you describe.

If you don't have a locking carabiner add two regular carabiners diametrically opposed.

I think we've side tracked here. Ignor the sling my main point of the post is about climbing 2 ropes. Could you explain what you'd do if you overshot the station with your pig Sorry me again .in hindsight maybe I should have said use a karabiner you see the point is still valid if the knot slipped through the crab(I'm not bothererd about the rope cutting as much as I am about the ropes not being fixed,making either rope free to pull down so climbing both ropes at the same time seemed a good idea. you could pull one rope down whilst the other goes up. maybe I'm missing something?? I just thought this way was easy enough to do.so that's why I posted it.

Attach one prussic to the anchor and the other to your harness. Just do some squats until you have enough rope to build a haul system. The pig shouldn't be that heavy. All the water and food should be gone, or most of it.

Plus fist the guy to rap generally doesn't carry the pig. But there is the solo scenario.

so you've tied off your pig on both ropes. you've then climbed to the rap station,

1- place a pully on the anchor, and a pully connected to an inverted jumar on the rope going to the pig. get your z cord ( 10 feet of 5 to 6 mill rope, this is tied to the anchor goes down to the pully on the jumar then back up to the other pully and then finally back to you on a clove hitch. when you sit down the rope/pig will come up, the slack now created needs to go through a traxion or another jumar and pulled tight, once the weight is on the traxion, stand up and push the inverted jumar down and sit down again. heres a post from pass the pitons pete on the setup,

You don't need 2:1, but if the pig is on the line, you can't load the rope through a hauling device or pulley until the weight is off of the rope. So it might be useful to use a Zed-cord type hauling system (ie Chongo/PTPP/Hudon's style 2:1) that does not use the climbing rope in the hauling system. You could do this without the 2:1 and get enough slack in the rope to load a pulley/trax.

sorry ive just re read your post I get it now!! pull the rope on one side and the prussic will hold it on the other, this does depend on wether the load isint too heavy though. I still would say you need a 2 to 1 if its really heavy.